Accent Softening #2 – The ‘L’ Sound

It’s quite amazing how much one consonant can affect an accent. That’s why in this series we’re going to be focusing our attention on a few consonant sounds to see how we can change them. After all, accent softening is all about increasing clarity – and a weak L sound can often lead to misunderstandings.

So, how do we form the ‘L’? The ‘L’ is what we call a ‘lateral’ consonant, in that it’s produced by raising the tongue to the alveolar ridge and allowing the sound to emanate from the sides that we’ve left open. In biological terms, these sides are called the ‘lateral’ edges of the tongue, so that’s it.

But this is not quite so clear-cut, as there are actually two different ways of making an ‘L’ – and putting the wrong type in the wrong place can land you in a completely different accent. So here goes:

The Light ‘L’

The L has a light and dark setting, and this depends on the position of the tongue during L-ing. For the lighter L, only the tongue tip touches the alveolar ridge. This makes a very light, almost ‘flicked’ sound on the consonant.

1. Say the world ‘light’, using only the tongue tip. Now ‘la-la-la, lee-lee-lee, law-law-law’. You should feel the tip alternate between the vowel and the consonant, only lightly touching at the front.

The Dark ‘L’

The Dark L is just like a light L, but uses a lot more tongue blade rather than tip. The tongue may go further forward, but no further than the lips, and you should feel the tongue raise higher a little bit.

1. Say the word ‘tall’. Feel that the ‘L’ sound is darker there than it would be for ‘taller’. Now ‘ball-ball-ball, boll-boll-boll, bill-bill-bill’.
2. Alternate between light and dark ‘L’ sounds. ‘Law-ball-law-ball. Lee-beel-lee-beel’. Can you feel the difference?

How ‘L’ can go wrong

In RP (Received Pronunciation), there are some very specific rules regarding L’s.

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